Half-Life: Alyx

[Leddy]

https://www.half-life.com/en/alyx

So, a huge elephant in the room of the recent day or two is... Valve has shifted a number of big moves at once. You've got the first Operation in CS:GO in 2, Valve finally created a proper Twitter account... but the biggest one by FAR was the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx on said Twitter page.

What are your thoughts? Excited? Afraid? Conflicted? Put all of your thoughts here. I know this isn't a huge gaming forum or the like, but this is a pretty massive announcement.

I'm personally extremelly excited. The large majority of Valve's entire employee base has been working on this for years, alongside two currently unannounced projects. It's crazy to finally be getting another singleplayer game from Valve, let alone one of the Half Life franchise? The bloody Mona Lisa of Video Game series on PC? I'm extremelly excited.

What with having Steam Index making leaps and bounds in tracking your hands, to the fact that it is FREE FOR ANYONE WHO HAS ANY PART OF A STEAM INDEX, EVEN JUST THE CONTROLLERS and it'll be automatically added to your library when it releases, and the fact that Valve is, even now, super tedious on their large projects having absurd quality control. They've scrapped nearly every project for the better part of a decade because it either had development problems or wasn't up to their standard.

I'm confident this is going to be the title to revolutionize VR, just like Half-Life revolutionized FPS, and Half-Life 2 revolutionized physics engines and textures in gaming, this is going to be big. Valve wouldn't release it otherwise, especially not under the Half-Life branding. Seeing Valve jumping into this is amazing, I've always loved VR and the concept of it for gaming, and this may be the big thing that really gets everyone on board for it and truly sets the standards for AAA VR Games in the future.

[RoyalFiddle]

WE ARE IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE PEOPLE, VALVE MADE A FEATURE LENGTH GAME ON VR THAT FUCKING FIXES ALL OF THE VR PROBLEMS

[Leddy]

WE ARE IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE PEOPLE, VALVE MADE A FEATURE LENGTH GAME ON VR THAT FUCKING FIXES ALL OF THE VR PROBLEMS

EXACTLY YES THIS SEEMS SO BLOODY UNREAL AND IM SO SAD THAT I CANT DO ANYTHING OR GET IT WHEN IT COMES OUT REEEEE.

Hey, on a serious note for anyone looking at this thread who really wants to play this now, but doesn't have VR or a VR Ready Computer, ValveNewsNetwork's guide on Budget VR is really good and made exactly for this purpose, recent too. I don't mean to do heave advertising but

Code: Select all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4fUDlvouDY 

Go there if you are interested or need a helpful guide to that.

[PilotBlackSmith]

I wish I could afford VR

[Leddy]

I wish I could afford VR

God we're in the same boat I feel so sad I've got to try and weasel my way to affording one somehow darn.

[rookie1978]

Seems like Valve's unwilling to make HL3 but still wants to cash in on VR and set a game out. Not that it doesn't look good- the trailer showed an exceptional amount of quality compared to most VR games and is exactly what i'd expect Valve to make if they still branded themselves as a game company instead of a company that sells other games, cough cough Steam store. So it was a pleasant surprise that it doesn't look like garbage and i'm hoping Valve opens up to making more games. I don't think they'll ever beat the classics like Team Fortress 2, Portal, Half Life 2 etc. but i'm certainly willing to see them try and i'm really excited to see how Valve handles modern specs in games.

But for gods sake please just release the heavy update Valve fucking please god please

I wish I could afford VR

My dumbass bought an Oculus without realizing your computer needs to be high spec to run most VR games. I can still play the low-demand ones fine but even the weird room homescreen thing spazzes the fuck out of my computer.

[Leddy]

Seems like Valve's unwilling to make HL3 but still wants to cash in on VR and set a game out. Not that it doesn't look good- the trailer showed an exceptional amount of quality compared to most VR games and is exactly what i'd expect Valve to make if they still branded themselves as a game company instead of a company that sells other games, cough cough Steam store. So it was a pleasant surprise that it doesn't look like garbage and i'm hoping Valve opens up to making more games. I don't think they'll ever beat the classics like Team Fortress 2, Portal, Half Life 2 etc. but i'm certainly willing to see them try and i'm really excited to see how Valve handles modern specs in games.

But for gods sake please just release the heavy update Valve fucking please god please

I wish I could afford VR

My dumbass bought an Oculus without realizing your computer needs to be high spec to run most VR games. I can still play the low-demand ones fine but even the weird room homescreen thing spazzes the fuck out of my computer.

So when it comes to this, I'm unsure of that being the entire motivation.

We KNOW as a fact that Valve has been working on multiple projects for the past DECADE, but that simply a lot of them never came to see the light or were cancelled. This apparently is the biggest team they've ever had working on a single game and is what I hope to be a revolutionary title for VR. If they're releasing it, especially under the HL brand, it'll be good. Beyond that, with how the mess of HL3's original story was released a year or two ago they're hesitant to be making HL3 immediately.

Now than on that note... according to Valve News Network (Usually pretty reliable source), there is potential for there to be some time shenanagins, AND the team themselves has even said that you should play HL2 Episode 2 for "Reasons that will become clear later in the game", so the hope that we get some content around that isn't completely gone.

Also sad news but it's more than likely that TF2 at least for the foreseeable future is going on a hiatus from any big updates, Valve has HLA to release and even after that 2 more massive projects in the workings for VR that we're aware of, one of which was teased to be getting it's own video like "The Final Hours of Half Life Alyx" Next year. I think it's safe to say that Valve is making at least a few more games.

[TobeWonInToronto]

I'm fine with everything about the game so far. I'm glad to see Valve give Half-Life the least bit of life support with this. It's definitely... something. I wasn't expecting any future Half-Life releases past a certain point if I'm going to be honest.

[Daz]

Dead on arrival. $1000 Index aside, the cheaper side of VR still has a pretty steep barrier of entry, even if this would give it some push. And if you simply don't have enough room in your place? You're fucked.

[Leddy]

Dead on arrival. $1000 Index aside, the cheaper side of VR still has a pretty steep barrier of entry, even if this would give it some push. And if you simply don't have enough room in your place? You're fucked.

High end systems always start off as expensive.

VR will become cheaper in time, you can find a good quality headset for about 250 dollars if you know where to look. It is a steep price to pay, but someone needs to be there to push the medium forwards before it even becomes cheaper and higher quality. Ten years ago, the Xbox 360 was still the console of choice and costed $400 dollars at launch and things like the Wii were still fairly new.

Everything has to start somewhere, and VR has had a somewhat stunted growth because of that high entry point with no real AAA titles avalible for it. Valve releasing their first singleplayer experience in some 8 years or so is massive news and this hopefully will encourage more people to buy the system. VR is getting more and more reachable every year, and things like this will help it in the longrun.

[aspiringWatcher]

But for gods sake please just release the heavy update Valve fucking please god please

You just need to abscond from their HQ with The Valve. You know the rules.

[Leddy]

Another guide for anyone looking to get into this cheaply hopefully.